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Classic kidlit rereads
In between the other books I've been rereading, there were also a couple of rereads of older books.
Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of Nimh - I reread this one a few days ago after randomly finding it while looking for something else on my bookshelves. I still feel as I did the first time I read it, or watched the movie - whichever came first for me, I genuinely don't remember now - that this book has an absolute genius premise in how it plays around with the tropes of classic children's animal literature.
Cut for anyone who doesn't actually want to know the big spoiler in the premise (which is revealed in full about halfway through the book).
In the beginning, of course, it's just a talking animal book - of course they talk and behave like people and have workshops, and cute little living rooms, and carpets, and books. And then you get the gradually unfolding reveal that the reason why so much of this is happening, is because these are an escaped group of uplifted rats and mice from a lab. (NIMH is National Institute of Mental Health.) And the non-uplifted animals of the fields and woods, while we do still have the general understanding that we can understand them talking and that they have names, are really different. The book doesn't follow through on this in every aspect, but it mostly does; the non-uplifted animals have an animal's problem-solving skill set (Jeremy the crow, who can't understand any way to free himself when he's tangled in a ribbon except by flinging himself against it over and over) and a much shorter lifespan.
I really liked how the uplifted and non-uplifted animals are both somewhat alien in their own ways, to each other as well as to the reader. The animals of course are animals, but the uplifted rats aren't miniature humans; they want to find out what a rat civilization would be like, starting over basically from scratch rather than living as thieves and hangers-on in the shadows of human civilization.
And it's also a really interesting choice to make the POV character one of the non-uplifted mice who doesn't fully understand a lot of what the uplifted rats explain to her, at least not to the extent that the reader does, though she's still clever and resourceful in her own way. (Reading this, I feel like Mrs. Frisby is kind of in between the ordinary field animals and the uplifted animals in a sense; she's been uplifted a bit herself because of Jonathan explaining things to her.)
Also a really interesting choice, maybe unique in kids' lit that I can think of - having as the viewpoint character, not just an adult, but a widowed mom with several kids, with the plot generally wrapped around trying to save one of her kids. I can't think of another book quite like it.
I remembered the character death, though I'd forgotten how hard this book goes on some of the bleaker stuff, including how he actually dies - plus, we never know for sure if he did die, or exactly what happens to the rats, since Mrs. Frisby is unlikely to see them again. I've only seen the movie once, I think, a very long time ago, so I don't know how the movie handled that or if the character death was also in it, although I think it was?
Anyway, I really enjoyed it! A fun quick read, a classic for a reason.
A Wrinkle in Time - I had pulled out this one and several others in the series to reread around the time I did my Dark Is Rising reread a couple of years ago, and finally got around to it. I remember a lot of this book really well - I must have reread it a ton as a kid, because I remember the broad shape of the plot as well as, in vivid detail, a number of images from the book, like the kids all bouncing their balls in unison, the disembodied brain, or Meg starting to pass out and dipping her head to inhale from the oxygen flower. What I didn't remember is how it all connected together, how it ended (I can see why), or how absolutely batshit insane this book is.
I do feel like this is one of those cases where this book, which I loved so much as a kid, doesn't quite hold together for me as an adult. The vivid parts are still vivid, the first few chapters in particular are a masterclass in holding the reader's attention while nothing much is actually happening, but by the end I felt - undercharmed, I guess? I found both the book's general level of batshit weirdness, and Meg herself as a protagonist, a lot harder to take than I remember either of them being when I used to reread it. And while I knew there were religious elements elsewhere in the series (one of the books literally deals with the Biblical flood; I definitely remembered that) I didn't remember the religiosity of this book AT ALL.
Which is fine! The fact that I loved this book as a kid means that it hit its target audience, and I am no longer its target audience, so the fact that it doesn't work for me nearly as well now is, perhaps, peak success mode for a book aimed at kids/teens. It was interesting to reread those scenes I remembered so well with adult eyes. I ended it feeling like I'd had about enough L'Engle for now, and will perhaps reread some of the others later, when I've had some time to recover from the experience of reading this one.
Mrs. Frisby & the Rats of Nimh - I reread this one a few days ago after randomly finding it while looking for something else on my bookshelves. I still feel as I did the first time I read it, or watched the movie - whichever came first for me, I genuinely don't remember now - that this book has an absolute genius premise in how it plays around with the tropes of classic children's animal literature.
Cut for anyone who doesn't actually want to know the big spoiler in the premise (which is revealed in full about halfway through the book).
In the beginning, of course, it's just a talking animal book - of course they talk and behave like people and have workshops, and cute little living rooms, and carpets, and books. And then you get the gradually unfolding reveal that the reason why so much of this is happening, is because these are an escaped group of uplifted rats and mice from a lab. (NIMH is National Institute of Mental Health.) And the non-uplifted animals of the fields and woods, while we do still have the general understanding that we can understand them talking and that they have names, are really different. The book doesn't follow through on this in every aspect, but it mostly does; the non-uplifted animals have an animal's problem-solving skill set (Jeremy the crow, who can't understand any way to free himself when he's tangled in a ribbon except by flinging himself against it over and over) and a much shorter lifespan.
I really liked how the uplifted and non-uplifted animals are both somewhat alien in their own ways, to each other as well as to the reader. The animals of course are animals, but the uplifted rats aren't miniature humans; they want to find out what a rat civilization would be like, starting over basically from scratch rather than living as thieves and hangers-on in the shadows of human civilization.
And it's also a really interesting choice to make the POV character one of the non-uplifted mice who doesn't fully understand a lot of what the uplifted rats explain to her, at least not to the extent that the reader does, though she's still clever and resourceful in her own way. (Reading this, I feel like Mrs. Frisby is kind of in between the ordinary field animals and the uplifted animals in a sense; she's been uplifted a bit herself because of Jonathan explaining things to her.)
Also a really interesting choice, maybe unique in kids' lit that I can think of - having as the viewpoint character, not just an adult, but a widowed mom with several kids, with the plot generally wrapped around trying to save one of her kids. I can't think of another book quite like it.
I remembered the character death, though I'd forgotten how hard this book goes on some of the bleaker stuff, including how he actually dies - plus, we never know for sure if he did die, or exactly what happens to the rats, since Mrs. Frisby is unlikely to see them again. I've only seen the movie once, I think, a very long time ago, so I don't know how the movie handled that or if the character death was also in it, although I think it was?
Anyway, I really enjoyed it! A fun quick read, a classic for a reason.
A Wrinkle in Time - I had pulled out this one and several others in the series to reread around the time I did my Dark Is Rising reread a couple of years ago, and finally got around to it. I remember a lot of this book really well - I must have reread it a ton as a kid, because I remember the broad shape of the plot as well as, in vivid detail, a number of images from the book, like the kids all bouncing their balls in unison, the disembodied brain, or Meg starting to pass out and dipping her head to inhale from the oxygen flower. What I didn't remember is how it all connected together, how it ended (I can see why), or how absolutely batshit insane this book is.
I do feel like this is one of those cases where this book, which I loved so much as a kid, doesn't quite hold together for me as an adult. The vivid parts are still vivid, the first few chapters in particular are a masterclass in holding the reader's attention while nothing much is actually happening, but by the end I felt - undercharmed, I guess? I found both the book's general level of batshit weirdness, and Meg herself as a protagonist, a lot harder to take than I remember either of them being when I used to reread it. And while I knew there were religious elements elsewhere in the series (one of the books literally deals with the Biblical flood; I definitely remembered that) I didn't remember the religiosity of this book AT ALL.
Which is fine! The fact that I loved this book as a kid means that it hit its target audience, and I am no longer its target audience, so the fact that it doesn't work for me nearly as well now is, perhaps, peak success mode for a book aimed at kids/teens. It was interesting to reread those scenes I remembered so well with adult eyes. I ended it feeling like I'd had about enough L'Engle for now, and will perhaps reread some of the others later, when I've had some time to recover from the experience of reading this one.
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I remember very little about the movie except that I hated it because it had supernatural elements which the book even with its sfnal premise did not. The book made a huge impression on me in elementary school and I am not sure that I have actually read it since.
like the kids all bouncing their balls in unison
I have always loved that image of ticky-tacky horror: suburban conformity turned up to hell.
I ended it feeling like I'd had about enough L'Engle for now, and will perhaps reread some of the others later, when I've had some time to recover from the experience of reading this one.
A Wind in the Door is the one I have re-read the most. It held up for me as recently as a couple of years ago.
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I was extremely meh on Wrinkle in Time even when we read it in school because as sci-fi it wasn't batshit enough and all the characters bored me when I was eight. I might have liked it a little better later in life! I read a lot of the other books, though - I adored A Wind in the Door (or whatever book 2 was called) and A Swiftly Tilted Planet (also bonkers but in a different way, despite the extremely weird, uh, color coding racism vibe).
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SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS WHOMST?? Okay, it seems that I *really* don't remember the movie, because I don't remember that at all! (At this point I have only the vaguest sense that I did see it, and a few bits of imagery.)
A Wind in the Door is the one I have re-read the most. It held up for me as recently as a couple of years ago.
I skimmed just the beginning of the review to remind me which one it was, and I remember that I did like that one! I'll give it a try and see how I feel - I remember reading one of her books about the other families something like 10-15 years ago and liking it better than I liked this one, so it's always possible that it's just the first one I bounced off.
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I was expecting to like A Wrinkle in Time more than I did based on how much I used to enjoy it. But outgrowing things is normal too! (That being said, based on other comments I might try one of the other books and see if I like it better.)
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Mrs. Frisby was a delight. :D
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It's the only thing I can remember beyond one line reading in a voice that turned out to be Derek Jacobi! I objected strongly! It was one of the movies screened after lunch by the summer camp where I was exposed to most of my Disney and other children's movies available by the mid-'80's. I tended to read through most of them.
I skimmed just the beginning of the review to remind me which one it was, and I remember that I did like that one! I'll give it a try and see how I feel -
I look forward to your thoughts!
I remember reading one of her books about the other families something like 10-15 years ago and liking it better than I liked this one, so it's always possible that it's just the first one I bounced off.
A Wrinkle in Time is definitely the most patchwork of the Murry books. A Swiftly Tilting Planet and Many Waters are both much more thematically unified, which is not to say that they don't have their own capacities for unfortunate implications to WTF. I never really clicked with An Acceptable Time and thus have little to say about it.
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I also agree about A Wrinkle in Time. I LOVED it as a kid, and read it over and over, and do pretty much remember it all through, I think. But when I reread it as an adult, it didn't quite hang together in the way it had when I was a kid.
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All I can tell you is I hated it!
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I was just about to describe the novel as the bridge between Watership Down and Redwall and then I checked my dates and Watership Down was published the year after Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, so a minor fuse was blown.
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Oh wow, I would not have guessed that was the order, either! (Some of the scenes in this book with Mrs. Frisby trying to understand rat things made me think directly of those parts of Watership Down with the rabbits unable to comprehend the basic functioning of things like boats or art.)
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O'Brien did write two other science fiction novels that I read around the same time, The Silver Crown (1968) and Z for Zachariah (1974); the internet informs me there was a fourth I never ran into. I have fewer memories of The Silver Crown as a sort of YA-sized paranoid thriller that starts with a curio and escalates to a conspiracy. Z for Zachariah is a post-apocalyptic two-hander that sets up a lot of familiar end-of-the-world situations with its sixteen-year-old narrator homesteading it single-handedly when the potential only other survivor in her part of the world or perhaps the entire world falls radiation-poisoned across her doorstep and then averts almost all of them. I keep meaning to re-read it every time I'm reminded it exists.
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There was a magic
gymGEM! And Mrs. Frisby uses its powers due to the strength and courage of her heart!I love the movie tbh, I'm such a sucker for Don Bluth, but it is SO different from the book, much more dramatic with a much clearer villain than I recall the book having. The death remains intact in the movie.
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What! Yes, okay, fair enough, but I would not have guessed that. Something in the zeitgeist, I suppose. Anyway, in defiance of linear chronology, I do agree with you.
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gymGEM!This is such a great typo that I'm glad you kept it. XD I read the comment the original way and I very seriously thought this was literal. I mean, in an 80s animated movie, I could see it!
I didn't actually realize that was a Don Bluth movie! He definitely didn't shy away from animated characters dying.
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Also I love him so much. All Dogs Go To Heaven is a classic.
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I am completely on board with this! I mean, the implication in the book is probably not that they all got gassed and/or eaten by wildlife on their way to their new home; I think it's just supposed to be quietly ambiguous in the way life is. But inferring a happy ending seems like the intent!
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I think I'll probably read A Wind in the Door next; it sounds like a lot of people liked that one, and I do have it!
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Thank you! (I am in fact trying to figure out what was in the zeitgeist.)
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Quantum unicorns! Nephilim! Seraphim! Tiny mammoths! Biblical interpretations I probably attempt otherwise to ignore!
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A Wrinkle in Time
When the film came out, I went with three friends who are an entire generation younger than me, but who also had loved the book. We all noticed what was omitted and what was kept. We enjoyed the film. This was my commentary at the time
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/513505.html
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Also loved The Silver Crown.
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In the movie, Nicodemus was very much framed as wizardly and this arising from the same experiments that gave them all sapience but being a bit special to him, and he gave Mrs Frisby a necklace with a red gem in it, which glowed when he used it, but went immediately inert/nothing more than pretty when she wore it for most of the movie. This pissed Jenner off a lot, along with all the other things; when they're trying to move the cinderblock and it's also all flooding because of a thunderstorm, he sabotages the machinery, killing Nicodemus and dumping the house back in the mud. Mrs Frisby arrives to warn them about the farmer being about to dig up the rose bush the next morning; Jenner tries to kill her; his henchman does a heel-face turn which, as is traditional results in him being fatally wounded; Justin and Jenner have a sword fight with ends with the henchman's dying act being stabbing Jenner in the back, thus avoiding having the hero in a children's movie in the 80s actually kill anyone.
After that the cinderblock starts sinking, kids and Auntie Shrew inside, and all is Lost until in desperation Mrs Frisby
gets a crit on her pushed POW rollhas the strength of will to activate the amulet and magically imbue the remaining struts and tackle and so on of the destroyed mechanism with the magical ability to move the cinderblock to where it was supposed to go.In the process she burns the everloving almighty shit out of her hands and then passes out and you get that thirty seconds of Eighties Movies for Kids where you "wonder" if maybe she died. (She did not.)
I loved this movie uncritically for decades and found the real book a profound disappointment when I tried to read it. XD I don't remember all of the attempt but I do remember having this feeling of squinting at it and coming to the conclusion that it was just like Bridge to Terabithia in that it SEEMED to promise magic but then The Magic Was Fake and it was actually about like, personal growth, or in this case Testing on Animals is Bad, except with rats, and that's when I stopped trying.
In the same way that Return to Oz left me with a profound habit of finding old looking keys with one bar across a round head of the key, and also an itch to really feel the texture of cups carved out of stones and the kind of sandwich pails from the Lunchbox Tree, Secret of Nihm left me wanting amulets/pendants with inscriptions on the back and preferrably a single round gem, smooth cut, on the front.
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